Nairobi Notes

Maybe Edwin (Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly, 2008) would rather have made a full-length feature, but his budget just happened to be very modest. He would most have loved to go to Kilimanjaro or, if necessary, to Mount Kenya. However the budget forced him to stay close to Nairobi. The young film makers and hip-hop video makers of Nairobi didn't mind that - Edwin was a welcome guest for them and they all admired his music videos.
In that case, a short fiction film. The Malaysian film maker Tan Chui Mui (see also Sarah and Omelga and No Woman Born in this programme) wrote the dialogues, based on a humorous questionnaire among Kenyan film makers, which took a playful look at clichés and prejudices in both Kenya and Indonesia.
In his quest for actors, Edwin came across the exciting music life of Nairobi. He found his protagonist in a real Congolese 'sapeur' (a dandy). Bikassy-Bijos, in other words Bikas, is the bandleader of a very tight Congolese dance band. Young musicians asked Edwin to shoot a music video with them. They chose the most unpleasant district of Nairobi for it, so that Edwin could spice up his own film a little.
For this festival Edwin previously made the short film Hulahoop Soundings, already a classic.